Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Nottinghamshire cuts - what's the story? (Part 3)

Following our recent activity on County Council cuts to VCS funding in Nottinghamshire we are now receiving a flood of examples of how this is affecting real activity on the ground. In many cases the County Council contribution covered basic core costs which stabilised organisations and enabled them to seek additional project funding from elsewhere. The implications of cutting out the core are potentially devastating; risking loss of entire services or organisations when accommodation, organisational management or fundraising capacity is lost. We feel the best thing we can do to support them is to share their stories and place the reality of local cuts in the open.

The Helpful Bureau - £55,000 cut resulting in closure of some services for older people and a reduction in others.

Rural Community Action Nottinghamshire - Lost in the region of £40,000 to deliver core services, again reducing service delivery to older people.

Tuxford Mine of Information - Grant for 2012/13 is currently £0, a loss of £10,000 on the previous year, leading to vulnerable people being turned away for services the organisation can no longer support.

Self Help Nottingham - Loss of £36,000 on top of £4,000 cut the previous year, resulting in them no longer being able to employ a full-time training and development worker to work exclusively in the county.

The Crossing - This church and community centre has lost it's annual grant of between £10,000 and £15,000, which has resulted in the redundancy of their volunteer coordinator. They are no longer able to induct and train volunteers and have not been able to find an alternative funding source.

Carers Federation - Loss of grant funding means they are now no longer able to provide counselling for carers in the county.

Nottinghamshire Scouts - Received £15,000 grant aid from the council (a 58% reduction on previous years), which equates to £2.30 per child per year, or 6.4p per child per week.

Other VCS organisations whose cuts we have been informed of include Disability Nottinghamshire; A Place To Call Our Own; Mansfield Citizens Advice Bureau; Bassetlaw CVS; Nottinghamshire Unemployed Workers Centre; Mansfield Family Life Centre; Rushcliffe Play Forum; Jigsaw Support Scheme; and Broxtowe Women's Aid.

We have focussed here on the impact of cuts in Nottinghamshire as the decision to cut a third of grant aid budget in one year (reduced from initial attempts to halve it) has been poor; passing on in a single year 100% of the equivalent authority budget cut over three years.

However, there is massive variance between local authorities on VCS support and grant aid is not the only issue to consider. We will flesh this out further in the next blog but if you’d like to view cuts impact in other areas why not visit our Big List.